It turns out, the key to a successful TV advertising strategy can be found in geology.
Namely, brands looking to reach consumers at scale today need to lean on the right mix of Boulders, Rocks and Sand.
Confused? Well in this case, we’re talking about the different vehicles through which people consume video: linear TV (the boulder), connected TV (rocks) and digital video (sand). Because despite all the hype about the macro (and very real) shift toward streaming, implementing the right mixture of these three is crucial for modern brands, both to effectively reach their target audiences and accurately measure their impact.
Because even as viewing habits change, consumers are unlikely to direct all of their viewing to a single platform or channel en masse for the foreseeable future—and ad spending allocations need to reflect that reality.
TV Viewing Will Remain in a Hybrid Phase for Awhile
There is no question that CTV viewing has exploded over the past decade—and ballooned considerably since the pandemic.
In fact, over this summer, streaming consumption surpassed linear TV in the U.S. for the first time, according to Nielsen. At the same time, we’ve seen cord-cutting continue to accelerate, leading some cable distributors to consider giving up on distributing linear channels at all.
However, the hype surrounding this massive change has led to some obstinate thinking on both ends of the industry.
Despite rumors of its demise, linear TV is far from dead."
At one end of the spectrum, you’ll hear plenty of chatter that brands should simply abandon linear TV entirely. Usually this is accompanied by talk that linear TV is, in their view, "dead." This is despite the fact the broadcast and cable still account for roughly half of TV viewing, per Nielsen. Roughly 20 million people tune in to watch Sunday Night Football each week, for instance. In fact, even a service as popular as the binge-friendly Netflix can lay claim to a mere 8% of total TV consumption.
So despite rumors of its demise, linear TV is far from dead.
Yet at the other end of the spectrum, there are the linear TV denialists. Some in our industry are so devoted to/enamored with, linear TV’s historic reach and efficiency that they cling to a linear-centric point of view when planning media. This philosophy ignores the fact that people consume video in huge numbers via a multitude of devices, platforms and viewing patterns—and likely will for some time.
Therefore, the smartest, most forward thinking brands will recognize the need for balance in their TV ad planning.
TV Advertising Requires Boulders, Rocks and Sand
Given the permanently fragmented state the TV market finds itself, marketers can’t afford to go all in on any one platform or vehicle. Instead, brands that are looking to employ TV to reach the majority of consumers are going to need a three-pronged strategy, including the Boulder, the Rocks and the Sand.
Indeed, even as the number of cord-cutters and cord-never households rises, large swaths of the country continue to consume TV through an array of channels, including linear and streaming.
The key will be figuring out how and when to use all three the most effectively. Video is only growing more complex, as brands will need to carefully plan out their budget distribution to ensure that they reach their target audiences via all three vehicles effectively and at the right level of exposure.
In other words, it’s incumbent on brands to know when and how to use Boulders, Rocks and Sand.
This is why accurate cross-platform metrics, buying and planning tools aren't nice to have, but a must have for our industry. If marketers can’t easily calculate basic measures such as how many people they are reaching through each vehicle, and whether they are the same viewers or not—well, they risk overwhelming people with boulders or burying others with sand.
Beyond the basics, brands must also take measures to ensure they have the right blend of mass reach advertising and audience based buying in TV as it evolves. Increasingly, new tools and solutions are entering the market designed to bring TV advertising in line with other media in terms of tracking return on ad spend.
In either case, this will require both brands—and their media partners - to knock down internal silos - as data sharing and media planning coordination will only become more essential.
TV is Getting Harder to Execute
Amazingly, the audience that can be reached via video advertising keeps getting larger, and the measurement and targeting tools available to brands have never been more innovative. Yet TV viewing is getting ever more fragmented, and complicated for brands to employ.
That’s why it’s imperative for our industry to not rest on its laurels, as streaming and CTV ad spending surges. To fully capitalize on this medium’s potential, we must move faster to develop cross-platform measurement that allows brands to reconcile their reach, frequency, and engagement across all channels.
This should enable brands to master just when to use Boulders, Rocks and Sand as effectively as possible to fill in all the gaps of an audience.
